Difference between JV and Freshmen in batting average

There isn't a formula for adjusting batting averages from freshman to JV. Besides, the varsity coach doesn't care. What he's looking for is players to develop their skills and help the varsity at some point in the future. High school batting averages are stats in small numbers with a large margin for error and change. Today's .500 hitter can be hitting .250 three games later.

Let's say two players get sixty plate appearances with fifty at bats and ten walks. In forty-five of their at bats the players are equally successful. In their last five at bats player A hits five frozen ropes right at fielders for outs. Player B gets five dink hits on soft grounders and bloops. Player A hit .300 (15-50). Player B hit .400 (20-50). Which player do you think has made more of an impression on the varsity coach for the following season? It's not player B. But even next season, the coach is going to be looking at how prospects are swinging the bat right now (next spring) over last year's batting average.

There's a mother in our program whining her son isn't on varsity this year. After all, he led the JV team in hitting last year. He only played against weak pitching. When he remained in the game against a strong reliever he couldn't touch the ball.

Don't worry about stats. Tell your son to work hard, be coachable and develop the mechanics and tools necessary to move up to varsity someday. I've seen players leapfrog others who thought they would be starting on varsity the following year.

I wish I had an answer for you, but I don't. In our area, different HC'es run things differntly. Some have kids play only with their age group, some allow kids to move up to JV, and some allow underclassmen to move up only if they are going to start on Varsity. It makes for some strange games at the Freshman level. 25-0 blowouts and 1-0 games. I don't think there is anyway to compare stats at the 2 levels unless all of the coaches have the same rules. Even the stats on the same team mean next to nothing. The starters only play one inning in the blowouts and the bench guys get to feast on the poor pitching. The only way I can tell who the coaches like is when they play tournaments on our team. When they pull up one JV guy and 3 freshman it is pretty obvious who they think can play at that level.

But to be honest, our coaches don't care much about Freshman and JV stats and I will bet if you asked them, they couldn't tell you who the leaders were in any category except maybe HR's and K's. Varsity production is all that matters to them.

From what I've seen from the schools in our area, there's not much difference in Freshman and JV ball. The big difference is Varsity ball. Where my son played, the freshman team stayed together with no movement during the season to jv ball so they played together more as opposed to jv who travels with varsity and was used like a taxi squad and the top jv's can get called up at any time if they're needed or an underclass varsity player on the bench can go down and get some work. While some coaches keep stats down on jv and freshman, they really don't count for much where as varsity, they count towards division, county and state records. Jv and Freshman is developmental.

Jumpin Joe- your son should of asked "How do you hit twice .533?"

But seriously, who cares it is freshamn baseball and JV baseball... there is not a college coach in the world who cares... make noise as a junior and his post-junior-year summer and follow up with a nice senior spring....

stats mean about nothing... Ryan Howard drove in a gillion guys last year, dropped a bunch of bombs and hit about .248. An MVP year for anyone in MLB... why, because runs win ball games, not BA averages...

if you had your choice between two kids that each hit .300 who would you take? what if one was 30/30 for his first 30 at bats of year and then went 0/70 down the stretch... and the other went 1/3 every single game of season... they'd both have same BA....

Thanks everyone for your insights..... I don't care much about stats and that's what I told my son. Just keep hitting the ball and playing hard.

My advice to him was as kids grow at different times the ability changes every year, I also said talk was cheap and it's all about production and leadership.

Oh yeah I told him to have fun and just knock the **** outta the ball....

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Oh yeah I told him to have fun and just knock the **** outta the ball....

Best advice you can ever give.

Agree with previous posts, the only thing that matters is the Varsity program and below this it gets fuzzy.

At least in California there seems to be minor differences between JV and Freshmen. Some schools keep their Freshmen down and others move them up. Last year we had two position Freshmen play up to fill some holes and they kept all of the pitchers down. Some years Freshmen teams are stronger than JV, just depends on the mix and what is going on at the Varsity level and who has been pulled up.

To answer your question my son was on the Freshmen team last year and this year he is playing Varsity. He ended up batting 0.484 with a OPS of 1.284 as a Freshmen and he is batting around 0.400 this year on Varsity.

The differences between Varsity and Fresh/JV are huge and make sure he is really focusing on the fundamentals of his swing. He can get by with some flaws on Fresh/JV that will cause him problems on Varsity. My son struggled a bit when he was moved up to Varsity over the summer and he has had to work hard getting his swing in order to compete at the Varsity level.

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He can get by with some flaws on Fresh/JV that will cause him problems on Varsity

Not only that, even when they swing the bat well on varsity, they will find a lot of balls that went thru the infield for hits or outfield gap shots that went for doubles or triples on jv and frosh ball are outs on varsity. The game is that much faster compared to frosh and jv.

To the poster who mentioned that some years the frosh teams are better than the jv teams, that was like that last year in our school. The freshman team was very strong and had pitching and a couple of big strong kids who will probably skip jv and go right to varsity. With last year graduating 10 seniors including my son, it should be a very young team with mostly sophomores and juniors and a couple of seniors. The season preview should be in the paper this weekend which list teams, returning letterwinners and newcomers so I'll see if I'm right or not.

I know kids playing D1 baseball this year as freshman and they are hitting for a higher average than they were in HS last season. It means absolutely nothing and there is no way to make any kind of sense out of it. Just have quality ab's and continue to work at getting better. And above all else have a good time playing the game.

I agree with the notion that there is not much difference between Freshman and JV teams.
A coach will assess a kid more on his swing, how hard and consistently he hits the ball and productivity of his at bats. (driving in runs, moving runners, clutch hits).

A sac fly to score a run in a close game is much more productive, and important, than a single with the score 10-0.

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Originally posted by zombywoof:
To the poster who mentioned that some years the frosh teams are better than the jv teams, that was like that last year in our school. The freshman team was very strong and had pitching and a couple of big strong kids who will probably skip jv and go right to varsity. With last year graduating 10 seniors including my son, it should be a very young team with mostly sophomores and juniors and a couple of seniors.

That is exactly what is happening with my son's team this year, 4 freshmen (last year) were moved up to Varsity and we have 4 (starting) Soph's this year....so it does not matter much where you play when you start HS - what really matters is how you progress during the year. Keep working hard and good things will happen.

My sons HS coach, the Old Dinasaur that he was had a philosophy---he didnt care what the BA was as long as it improved from year to year--he liked to see an improvement of 75 to 100 points in the BA each year---any thoughts?

TRhit-
i think that is "basically" okay... but still doesn't get past the fact that BA from one year is specific to pitchers faced that year... what if opponents pitching was much worse/better the next year??

i would think a coach who sees his players daily should be able to see improvements mechanically and mentally...

to me it's about makeing the small adjustments over 20 little things (not one big thing) that makes a player great...

JMO

Well I started this thread with a funky question. Tomorrow maybe I can find out.... My freshmen son just got called up to JV and has a game tomorrow.

He will be starting on the bump and hitting. I guess we will find out.

In my opinion, Freshmen games are way too slow. Especially the pitching speed. I doubt if my son will have any luck to hit those lolipop pitchers. Varsity will be the right speed for him. I hope JV games have some good pitchers left. It's worthless to play in a freshmen team in our area. I would rather ask my son to take a year off than play for freshmen team and mess up his swing. Sad truth about HS baseball.

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Originally posted by bbking:
In my opinion, Freshmen games are way too slow. Especially the pitching speed. I doubt if my son will have any luck to hit those lolipop pitchers. Varsity will be the right speed for him. I hope JV games have some good pitchers left. It's worthless to play in a freshmen team in our area. I would rather ask my son to take a year off than play for freshmen team and mess up his swing. Sad truth about HS baseball.

If he can't hit a slow pitch how the heck do you expect him to hit a change on Varsity after seeing an 85MPH fastball? Whiff...sit down.

Jumpin Joe curious what differences you see between the two.

TR I agree with the improvement year over year. I am not sure about the BA at 100pts seem like a lot if you play three years of Varsity, maybe over two. I would expect slugging to go up pretty dramitically over a couple of years as kids get bigger and stronger.

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Originally posted by BOF:

If he can't hit a slow pitch how the heck do you expect him to hit a change on Varsity after seeing an 85MPH fastball? Whiff...sit down.

.

Hitting a baseball is all about timing. My son has very fast bat speed, he is use to hit the 80+mph ball, now you ask him to hit those low 70s pitches, it will make him look bad by hitting soft grounders and pop flies, because the speed is just too slow to get a good hold on those pitches. If you face a good pitcher, you can lay off those off speed pitches in the low 70s, sit on the fastball around 80. It will sure make you look good, when you hear the bat pop and the "rope" coming off the bat. You won't have this kind of feeling when you hit those slow pitches.

BTW, those weak freshmen pitchers top out at low 70s their change maybe under 60, near "junk" level, way too slow for next level hitters.

My son had the experience bbking stated last year. 16U fall travel pitching was far superior to JV pitching. My son was out in front the first few games. What straightened him out was an a JV pitcher throwing 85 (that school's varsity was loaded last year). The pitcher threw hard and he was around the plate. My son crushed the kid.

He said in most cases at the JV level, less than half the pitches he saw were strikes. He's hitting the ball better on varsity this year than he did on JV last year. Varsity pitchers are around the plate more with better velocity.

Well my son went 2-2 with 2 walks in his first JV outing. The best I can tell, the pitching is not that much better, but the fielding and umpiring is.

He also pitched 4 innings gave up 1 run.

If I had to guess, I would say there may be a 50-100 point swing in BA from jv to freshmen. I really don't think the pitching is that much different, but the fielding is considerably better.

For what ever it's worth

I'm glad your son's outing went so well! He sounds like a great kid and probably too classy to go back to the kid on the bus and make a crack... but if it were me, I'd sure be tempted.

Hope he continues to excel!

LHPMom

Son hit .386 at FR level, hit .450 at JV level. Saw fast at both levels and saw lollipops at both levels. Some days he killed fast and some days he killed lollipops.

He's in HS...I figure he is pretty typical HS player/kid. You never know just exactly what he'll do on any given day.

If his defense was like that, I'd probably have put him down. LOL.

If a kid can hit, he'll work it out himself how he handles fast and loolipop pitchers as he will see both at the Varsity level as schools vary in talent level year to year. A real hitter will always be able to handle both; aren't any excuses once you step into the batters box...you either hit or sit. Can't blame speed or the lack of if you don't hit.

My kid is hitting 330 as a freshman playing as the varsity catcher. Thus, based on these posts, he needs to go up more than 100 points or more in the next few years to be considered a D1 prospect.

My son is in the 7th grade and playing freshman ball. His BA isn't very good as you can imagine being only 12 but his OBP is decent but the coach told them if he hears anyone discussing either, they could be on the outside looking in.

I would not focus on average. The batting avearge will take care of itself. I suggest that you work on getting better every year, have solid mechanics and a great mental approach. In addition, find the best hitting instructor in your area and continuing working with him through your sons high school career.

As these kids get older, if they continue to work they will improve. Again, do not focus on batting average.

Lefty...

The V coaching staff was able to check out some of our JV games this past week over Easter break. Our V tourney was early in the week and JV was later. Offensively, we are looking to see what the swing looks like, how hard they can hit, how comfortable they are with hard throwers (if they face any), how well they stand in on a breaking ball, how they handle a pitcher that mixes, running speed, baserunning awareness, etc. We might glance at BA next to the rest of the team if it is shoved in our face but it is really a minor factor.
Similar to other posts, we have parents of JV players moving up to V that can't figure out why son is not a hitting star because they batted *** in JV. In many cases, it doesn't translate to success at V.
Work on the things it takes to be successful at the next level.
Also, there are so many different classes and levels of HS ball. Around here (and most everywhere), there are some JV and even Freshman teams of bigger schools that would beat up on some of the smaller HS V teams. So, there is no way to put a general value or equation on Frosh vs. JV numbers.

As Steve Springer says the batting average is E V I L. Forget about it. Hit the ball hard, stay inside it and everything else will take care of itself.

A player can tear it up in Freshmen and JV ball, but when he gets to Varsity and is seeing upper 80's pitching and serious breaking balls the game changes. Our best hitter from JV is up with the Varsity team this year and he is doing OK, but his swing is too long and he will have to go back to the drawing board this summer and rework his swing if he wants to compete at this level.